All's Fair in War and Love
by Sueg5123
Summary: AU in which a new EP comes to News Night to shake up the status quo and in doing so shakes up Will McAvoy.
1. Alive Day

**Alive Day**

"I didn't know that people didn't like working for me."

"Do you care?"

"No." Pause. "_Of course I care_. Anybody would care." Another pause, another pivot. "But honestly, I don't." Having exhausted the number of positions he could take on the same issue, Will decided it was time to apply indignation to his argument. "I am a perfectly nice guy and I have the focus group data to prove it, so maybe the problem lies not with me—"

Charlie seemed on the verge of laughter. "I hired a new EP for you."

"What do you mean?" The indignation reached fever pitch and Will's hands gripped the edge of the table, telegraphing his surprise and frustration at the turn in the conversation. "I'm never going on vacation again. You hired a new EP without my meeting him?"

"Yep. One of MacKenzie's guys." Reading the mixture of incredulity and growing anger on the other man's face, Charlie spoke even more rapidly. "_I had to right the ship, Will_. You're too big an asset to screw around with and your focus group data isn't saying what it said three weeks ago."

"Charlie, have you hired to run my show—without consulting me—" Will ensured each syllable was distinct for impact.

"His name's Harper, James Harper. He was in Peshawar with her, the Green Zone for a year before that. They were filing stories from caves—"

"I know that and I don't care. Not MacKenzie, and not her people—not for my show—"

"She comes home and there's nothing for her at CNN, nothing for her at ABC." Charlie's voice dropped with sadness. "Nothing for her here, either, because she knew you wouldn't—"

"Absolutely not."

"She's exhausted, Will, they all are. Not like at the end of a long day. Mentally and physically exhausted. They've been shot at in three different countries and been to way too many funerals for kids their ages. She called me and asked me to give him a chance—"

"She's just using it as a chance to worm her way—"

"She didn't ask for herself."

"Just a matter of time."

"Goddammit, Will. You don't know what happened—"

Resolute, Will shook his head. "I can't give my approval. Not MacKenzie, and none of her acolytes—"

Charlie leaned back and crossed his arms. "Well. It's happened. He's coming up from Washington today."

"The hell _it's happened_. I have approval over my executive producer."

"You would think so, wouldn't you? Business Affairs went through your whole deal. Na-da. It's not gonna go your way, Will."

oooo

"Yes?"

"I'm Jim Harper."

Maggie scrunched her face in an exaggerated pose of recall.

"The new EP. I'm supposed to be meeting with Will. Will McAvoy."

"Will. Oh yes, _Will_." She looked relieved at the familiarity of that name, at least.

"Is Will in his office?" Jim tried to look over the young woman's shoulder.

"He should be back any minute now. He had to talk with Charlie—"

"Skinner? The news division president?" Jim brought one hand up to rub his temple.

_This didn't bode well._

"What's your name?"

"Maggie. Margaret." She let a beat pass before revising it again. "Margaret Jordan." Beat. "But Maggie's fine."

"Okay, Maggie. Let me try to guess at something and you tell me how close I am to being right. My being here may have been done behind Will's back and he just found out now, and he stormed off to see why he doesn't have approval."

Another beat, followed by a slow nod. As Jim began to recalibrate his expectations for the afternoon, Maggie suddenly spied a familiar face passing through the bullpen.

"Don? Don? Over here." She waved him over. "You should meet Jim Harper."

"Harper," Don repeated. "You the new hire?"

"Yeah. I'm replacing the guy who's going to 10pm with Hirsch."

"That would be me. Don Keefer."

They shook hands

"Were you with MacKenzie in Afghanistan? I mean, Charlie told me—"

"Yeah," Jim hurried to cut him off. "Afghanistan. And Iraq. Sometimes Pakistan. A little over two years' worth of sand and shitty food."

Don made the requisite little chuckle. "I interned under Mac a long time ago. How is she?"

For the first time during the exchange, Jim seemed to become reticent. "She's—she's fine. Why?"

"Well, I mean—Charlie said there had been an explosion and that—"

"She's okay. Mac is okay." Jim repeated it like a mantra, which immediately made Don uncomfortable and a little suspicious. So he changed the subject.

"You ever produce from the studio?"

"For about a year in Atlanta before Mackenzie took me out. Sporadically since. CNN really didn't have a place for us."

They both became aware of a presence. Will had materialized behind Don.

"You him?"

"Yeah." Jim knew exactly who this was and the attitude to expect.

"In my office."

Once the door had closed, Will leaned back in his chair.

"Tell me who you are again."

"Jim Harper. I think Mr. Skinner was supposed to—"

"Well, I respect Charlie's judgment and all, but I have some say over who's going to produce my show. So, when I hire the new EP, _who I will hire by hiring him myself_—whoever it is, is going to be—"

"You're saying I don't have a job—"

"I'm saying you don't have _this_ job. Yet."

Jim threw his hands up. "I quit my job at CNN for this. But you don't want me or the three people I brought with me from Atlanta—who, by the way, are in the process of moving themselves and their families. They've put down security deposits. They've found daycares and roommates."

"None of that can't possibly be my problem."

"_But it is_." Overheated, Jim reached to loosen the unfamiliar necktie strangling him. "Look. I've come here to produce a news broadcast that I am told resembles the one you did before you got popular by not bothering anyone. Mr. Skinner brought me in to _help_ you. Now, do I need to call him to referee this thing?"

"I'm the referee, Scooter. I'm the umpire. I'm the goddam commissioner of baseball where you are concerned. I'm the ultimate authority for this show. That's all you need to—"

Jim thrust his hands into his pockets. "Then I'll let you tell Skinner why I—"

"MacKenzie set all this up, behind my back," Will seethed. "You're just collateral damage, and don't think I can't hear her words in everything you just said. She's not going to run my show, even remotely, through you. I'll make the decision on the best EP for my—

"You already missed the best EP for your show." Jim crossed his arms and glared at the other man.

"—And _he_ will have the judgment and experience to helm a show like this one."

Jim took a deep breath and plunged in. "Last week, the second longest-serving Congressman in the House was forced to step down from the Ways and Means Committee over ethics violations. The president signed the Affordable Care Act, which may radically alter health care in this country. And the U.S. Department of Education proposed a nationally standardized curriculum, which may wrest education away from state control. Meanwhile, _News Night_ devoted one whole show to a sneak peek at the new iPhone 4—"

"Technology is news," Will shot back, unmindful of the petulant tone that had crept into his voice.

"That was product placement, not news," Jim dismissed. "Oh, and _News Night_ also spent the better part of an hour on that movie that won an Academy Award—"

"It was a movie about the _war_ in Iraq," Will insisted, as if that was _prima facie_ evidence.

"—And the rest of the time pitching softball questions to Sarah Palin."

"And your point is?"

"I can't believe I actually have to say this," Jim muttered to the room, before returning his attention back to Will. "You need to be reclaiming journalism as an honorable profession. Skip the gladiatorial combat for ratings and advertising dollars, and make this the nightly newscast that informs a debate worthy of a great nation."

Will threw a hand up to cover his face. "Oh, god. I hear her in every syllable."

"Yeah. I guess the only real differences between _her_ and you are her two Peabodys and the scar from the explosion—" Jim stopped abruptly and took a deep breath to calm down. "But I can see where you wouldn't be interested in any of that," with loaded irony.

Jim's phone chirped at the same time Maggie entered the office.

"There's—there's—Neal says there's a iNews yellow alert for—"

"—An explosion in the gulf," Jim informed the others, having dug his phone from his pocket. "It looks like—oh, this is gonna be big." He looked up from his phone, the gears in his head visibly turning.

Will understood the look and suddenly capitulated. After all, Don was still moving to 10pm with Hirsch and _News Night_ still needed _someone_. It might take weeks to put out feelers and interview likely candidates.

"Okay, Jim Harper. I didn't buy any of that bullshit you just said, but can you start two weeks early? You'll do for the interim. So, for the moment, your people can have their jobs."

Jim hesitated, uncertain of the small victory and feeling the need to cement it.

"They're really good. You're gonna want to keep them." Suffused with the win, he immediately overplayed his hand. "You know what—something great is going to happen here and you're gonna proud to be a part of it. This is a solid promise: We're going to do the best news on TV."

"Get out of my office."

oooo

The four days immediately following the Deepwater Horizon gusher were hectic and intense. Having broken the story—at least, such salient parts of the story as the inability of BP to cap the well and the potential environmental harm—_News Night_ led, authoritatively, in the follow-ups. The young team under Jim Harper's aegis snagged prized interviewees ahead of other news programs

Will McAvoy was in an enviable and unusual spot. His show at ACN had nabbed both the prestige and the ratings.

_Except_…

He couldn't help but feel that he was treading on someone else's largesse. That—had it not been for Neal's quick finger on the mouse or Jim's connections—that perhaps ACN might not have fared so well.

In other words, he knew how lucky he was.

But when he considered deeper, tried to trace the source of that luck, he reached only one conclusion.

_MacKenzie_.

It was through her intervention that Harper was there, and it was only through Harper's presence that the rest had been possible. Sampat was a smart guy, but he wouldn't have found traction with the story on his own. Very possibly no one would have even dared breach Will's inner sanctum with the initial iNews alert.

His curiosity about her had been piqued, and he resented having her in his thoughts again.

At least, she wasn't working in New York. He'd have heard about it by now. If she was competition at another network, he'd definitely know. It would be impossible to hide Mac's professional light under a bushel.

_There's nothing for her at CNN_. So, she wasn't in Atlanta, either, according to Charlie.

Must be back home in Old Blighty, then.

Good place for her. Lots of distance between the two of them. No need to worry about accidental encounters or mutual acquaintances.

He made a mental note to look her whereabouts sometime, because he wanted to be certain.

oooo

A week later, Jim stood in front of a dry erase board and gestured with the tip of his marker to each bullet-point.

"'Is this information we need in the voting booth?' 'Is this the best possible form of the argument?' and 'Is the story in historical context?'" He capped the marker and turned around. "You can use a mnemonic device. The three I's."

Perched on the edge of Neal's desk, Will cradled a Diet Dr. Pepper and watched the antics on the other side of the glass-walled conference room. Hands shot up around the table. Professor Jim was surely regurgitating MacKenzie-_isms _by now.

Will took a sip.

"—Civility, respect, and a return to what's important. Speaking truth to stupid. We have the chance to be among the few people who can frame that debate—" Jim noticed the pairs of eyes glazing over at his rhetoric, so he decided to simply bring it home.

"There simply _aren't_ two sides to every story. Some stories have five sides, some only have one. One party says it's raining outside, the other party says it isn't. _Our_ job—" Jim put both fists down on the table, "our job is to go outside and see which is true."

The younger faces around the table nodded sagely. Will could almost visualize the light bulbs glowing over their heads. All that idealistic crap.

_It was one hundred percent MacKenzie McHale._

"Okay, so Kendra's booked us the governor tonight for nine minutes. She's only talking to Will about this state bill 1070, this Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act that requires immigrants carry their alien registration documents at all times."

"No panel?" Gary Cooper seemed surprised.

"Nope. Our studio is a courtroom and we only call expert witnesses. Will is the attorney for both sides and he only deals in facts. Not opinions, not party positions—_only_ facts. You will be amazed at the guests we will book using that obvious template."

Jim consulted the wall clock. "Okay. We've got four hours until show. Neal, I need you to get something up on the blog—what we talked about earlier is fine. And Maggie, I need you for a pre-interview with Governor Brewer's office."

After the others had filed out and as Jim began to gather and square his papers, Will sauntered into the conference room.

"I was surprised you didn't actually start baptizing the disciples."

Jim managed a sheepish smile. "Trying to give them some sense of scale of the importance of this thing we do every day. Keep them motivated."

"Hmm. Well, you've had two good weeks."

Jim couldn't help but notice that, while Will noted the coverage, he hadn't yet handed out any praise for it. And it made him a suspicious.

"So—what, you're canning me?"

Jim was only being slightly facetious. His continued employment at ACN had begun to feel more like an oversight on Will's part than any discrete decision.

"I'm saying, you've had a good two weeks, Scooter, so don't screw anything up." Will made a huff that might have been a chuckle. But to make sure that Jim still squirmed a bit, in penance for the whole 'News Night 2.0' lecture he'd inflicted on the staff earlier, he added, "I'm keeping all my options open, though."

Jim nodded slowly. They were just perpetuating the professional truce, was all. Will was trying to remain noncommittal on the subject of whether Jim had _earned_ the job yet.

"I heard what you said earlier. A lot of it sounded… um, familiar." Then, in an abrupt change of conversation, Will suddenly asked, "So, what did _you_ do in the war, _Ike_?"

Jim felt the edge behind Will's jocularity. This wasn't just friendly _get-to-know-you_ conversation. The other man was fishing for something.

"I reported for fifteen months from Afghanistan and Iraq. I lost a couple of friends. I took a slug." Jim's eyes had narrowed and he looked confrontational.

Will seemed genuinely impressed. "Where?"

"Outside Kabul. That's in—"

"I _know_ where Kabul is. Remember, _I report news every night_. What I meant was, where'd you get shot?"

A touchier distinction.

"Um… the glute."

"You were shot in the _ass_?"

"Nothing wrong with that," Jim shrugged, knowing that Will disparaging the injury still couldn't diminish actually being wounded under live fire. "Safest place to be shot, actually. Muscle, not soft organs." He continued moving papers around, waiting for Will to resume.

"So—was that the day MacKenzie saved your life?" With that same studied nonchalance.

"She wasn't there that day."

Will made a judicial hum of acknowledgement. "That sounds about right. Not around when you—"

Suddenly, Jim saw red.

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about." The profanity, coming as it did from the lips of one who had a mild demeanor and had never raised his voice in anger during a stressful two weeks in the newsroom, had the desired effect. "The week before, there had been an IED—"

"And that was when she saved everyone?"

"Look. I get that you don't like me for my association with someone whom you'd—well, I'd say you'd rather forget, except that you're the one who keeps bringing her up. So maybe you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you."

"It isn't," Will snapped, reflexively. "I don't want to know anything from you except what's important to this show. Got it?"

"Roger that."

oooo

Will waited impatiently in Charlie's office, idly inspecting the rows of memorabilia displayed on Charlie's bookshelves. The one that most interested him was a bronze disk, with _George Foster Peabody_ embossed around the bottom. On the base of the statuette, there was a small brass plate with supplementary words: _Charles A. Skinner, Television News, 1975._

"How're things going down there?" Charlie entered his office, coming up behind Will and then retreating to his desk chair.

Will sighed and turned. "I came up to personally apologize for tonight's show."

"It got away from you a little."

"It bordered on unprofessional."

"Here's professional," Charlie put one hand on his desk, "here's the border, and here's unprofessional, and _waaaay_ back here is tonight's show." Despite the implicit rebuke, Charlie's eyes twinkled.

"It was my fault." Pause, then a sudden about-face. "What the fuck am I saying? I've got an EP who is an adversarial punk and the team he's put together is only hours out of a community college journalism class."

"Sounds like you're evenly matched," Charlie smirked, sitting down behind his desk. "But you're going to need to get it together down there. Before we all hear about it from _up_ _there_." He rolled his eyes to indicate a higher station, effectively communicating Lansing involvement.

"How'd you come to find this particular guy?"

"Harper? I told you, MacKenzie called and—"

Will waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, but how'd she even get over the threshold, metaphorically speaking, with you? I mean, she's never worked for you. You don't know her."

"I know of her. You may live in a bubble, Will, but the rest of us have relationships with our peers and colleagues."

Will grunted and waited another few seconds before adding, "Just seems funny no one's hired her. Peabody awards and all."

Charlie leaned back. "Did it ever occur to you that she didn't want to be hired?"

That provoked a long pause, during which the obvious began to dawn on Will.

"You offered her the EP job first, didn't you?"

"Of course." There was no harm in admitting it now.

"But she turned you down."

"She knew you wouldn't want her here." Charlie shrugged and hesitated. "Well—that on top of everything else, I guess."

"What's '_everything else'_?"

"She didn't tell me anything. I heard it from other sources, people in the industry—"

"You're holding something back. What is it?"

With a wan smile, Charlie admitted, "The word was that she didn't come back—well, _right_."

The very inexactness of the phrase seemed ominous.

Charlie sighed again. "Look, I'm dancing around this out of respect for her reputation and whatever regard you may still—"

"Don't worry about that. MacKenzie and I are over."

Unconvinced but willing to let Will have his way, Charlie yielded. "Well. Since, as you say, you're _over_ her—I guess perhaps you can handle this." He waited a beat. "There was a roadside bomb, one of those things that are detonated remotely—"

"IED."

"Yeah. Messy things. From what I gather, there were broken bones. My contact at CNN hinted there was a concussion, perhaps mild TBI. Long, painful recovery. But the main thing—the big thing—was that she took some shrapnel."

"Shrapnel," Will repeated.

"She had to stop the on-camera work—not vanity, because she isn't that way, everyone says, and you probably know better than I. But it shook her confidence, and then there was—"

_The scar from the explosion—_

What Harper had said earlier came back. "Where did the shrapnel—?"

Charlie looked pained. "Face."

MacKenzie's face—the face he had chased from his thoughts for three years—suddenly appeared in his mind's eye, laughing in the way that she did when they were together.

"You're saying that she—" He stopped, gathered his thoughts. "How bad—"

"But this isn't like the old days," Charlie went on, seemingly oblivious to Will's grappling with the concept. "I mean, in the First World War, guys had to wear goddam metal masks to disguise their wounds. You probably don't know this, but cosmetic surgery originated because of the grievous wounds from that war—"

"_Wait_." Will put out his hand, willing Charlie to be silent while he came to terms with the revelation. "You're saying that Mac—"

"I understand," Charlie nodded, sympathetically. "It's pretty tough to hear, even if you're _over_."


	2. Put Me in His Ear

**All's Fair in War and Love - Ch2**

**Put Me in His Ear**

By the time Will up-ended the second drawer, he realized that he had done too thorough of a job of excising MacKenzie McHale from his life. He had scoured his computer files, poked the deepest recesses of his desk, and, now, rummaged through the accumulated detritus of old shoeboxes and nightstand table drawers, and he still couldn't find a photograph of her that had survived the purge.

Not one.

Since the conversation with Charlie a couple of hours earlier, the image of her in his head had blurred, become indistinct. He needed a picture, something tangible to hold. Perhaps it could even function as a talisman against—

_Something bad that had already happened._

Instead, his inability to locate a picture was a grim reminder that he was chasing the past now.

Charlie's revelation that Mac had been—_maimed_, was that the word?—in an explosion whilst embedded had stirred all manner of feelings. His initial resentment at having to feel anything on her behalf was almost immediately overtaken by anger at the injustice of such random cruelty. Compassion for what was surely her pain. He tried to imagine the effect of such a wound to one's self-esteem and how corrosive it might prove to any human relationships.

But, mostly, he felt an unsettling and profound sense of loss, that the bridges between them now had not only burned but the ashes been blown away. There was no chance of a turnaround or a happy ending.

Although he still regarded her as the most attractive woman he'd ever met in Real Life, Mac's looks alone were never the primary focus of his attraction to her. Clinically speaking, of course, her features had been pleasing with their symmetry and proportion, with every part that just seemed to fit. He remembered learning the language of her expressions to such a point that he could intuit the vertical line between her brow (_lost an interview_) or biting her lower lip (_anxiety_) or a slant to the way she held her head (_bedroom_). Her eyes exuded her allure and intelligence, but also—as he now reflected—her hurt, because he still recalled the morning he cast her out.

She'd been hurt then.

_So what? So had he. _

The hardest part of her confession about Brian had been his realization that she had been so false without registering any of the deceit in the face he loved and saw every day. It made her beauty seem a mask, and that was why it had been so important for him to remove every aspect of her from his life. He had to excise the deception—throw it out, tear it out, blot it out. So, he'd tossed or destroyed every photograph, dispersed every jpeg to untethered electrons, and—finally—exiled her from his mind.

Doubtless, he could still go to the internet and find a photograph of MacKenzie McHale. Nothing really disappeared from cyberspace, did it? There were CNN staff pages, perhaps, even Wikipedia—one of those would have an out-of-date picture. She hadn't disappeared from the face of the planet, after all.

That seemed like his only recourse now.

But it remained clear that there were no images that were personal, that she had given him, that he had taken of her, any of the two of them together.

Will couldn't find a photograph of MacKenzie, _as she had been_, and suddenly that was an emergency.

oooo

He was aware of Hang Chew's as a subsistence-level _meal-slash-bar-slash-entertainment_ space for the newsroom personnel, but—walking in—he was also aware of it as the kind of dive he hadn't gone near since he had graduated university. Lingering in the air was an egregious odor of smoked fish and the more subtle waft of rancid deep fat fryers and industrial urinal cakes, none of which appeared to deter the cockroach who determinedly ran inside as Will opened the door.

Murrow and Brinkley surely had had better watering holes, he decided.

He looked around the dim room and finally spotted them in the back corner, farthest from the karaoke machine. It was either the entire cast of a grungy production of the musical _Rent_ or his news team.

Gary saw Will walking over and nudged Jim. "Ahem," with a meaningful shift of his eyes.

Jim rose unsteadily and went to intercept Will. "Steve Jobs call with a request to pimp a new product?"

"What the fuck happened to 'I'm gonna be proud'? Tonight, we traded an interview with the governor of Arizona for, what, a trio of rightwing wingnuts?"

Jim belched and made no attempt to disguise it. "'S'cuse me. I've been drinking."

"For the love of—" Will rolled his eyes in disgust. "Are you drunk?"

"Not as drunk as I need to be to take a swing at my anchor. But if you'll give me five minutes—"

Will advanced to just a few inches from Jim and stared down imperiously. "What did you say?"

Swaying slightly, Jim squinted up at the other man. "I said I need another drink."

Gary rushed over to intercede. "Hey! Will! Don't often see you here."

"You never see me here, and I'm talking to _him_ right now."

Jim shook Gary off. "I'm okay, man. Go buy another round." He peeled off some bills and threw them at the other man. "Will and I have something to discuss."

Gary's eyes darted between the two. "Sure. But—we'll be looking for you to join us in a few minutes." His words seemed like a warning for Will.

Inebriated Jim still managed a nod, and once Gary had returned to where the rest of crew sat, he turned to Will. "You were saying?"

"The show sucked tonight."

"You're telling me."

The continued flippant responses lit Will's fuse. "Yeah, I'm _telling_ you. I thought you were supposed to be god's gift to broadcasting."

Jim attempted a shrug, which came out more like a weary roll of the shoulders. "Can we sit down? I think I'm dizzy." He stumbled to a chair.

Will brought up the opposing chair and waited for Jim to speak.

"Go ahead. Bust my chops for the show. If you need an audience, in order to add that perfect dash of humiliation, I'll call the staff over to witness it."

"Where is MacKenzie?"

Of all the words Jim expected from Will at this moment, those were not among them.

"What?"

"Is she back in the UK? She's a little too real for the west coast, so she'd never take a position in LA. But if she was working in New York I'd have heard about it by now. So, _where is she_?"

"Mac?" Jim was still trying to get his beer-blurred brain around the initial question. "But I thought that you—"

"Whatever she told you—"

"_She's_ never said a thing. _She's_ never mentioned you beyond the fact that you and she worked together once-upon-a-time. _You're_ the one who hasn't been able to shut up."

Will felt a flush of anger rise but forced it down. Harper was right. Discretion was truly the better part of valor and MacKenzie had proven herself valorous again. Still, his question hadn't been answered and he made sure his expression registered his irritation.

Meanwhile, Jim had signaled to a server. "Another beer. And water." He dipped his chin expectantly at Will, who shook off the offer.

"I'm still waiting for you to answer my question."

"Sure thing." Jim defiantly shook back a fringe of hair that had crept over his brow. "_Surprise_. You're wrong. Mac is here."

"The city?"

"Yup."

"Who's she working for? Because I haven't heard—"

"She's—taking a little sabbatical. Why is it so important to you?"

"It isn't." Will paused before amending, "I mean, I heard about—that is, Charlie just told me about what happened, so naturally I wondered. She'd be an asset to some news organization and it's strange that she—"

The server returned with the requested beverages and before Jim could reach for the beer, Will picked it up.

"Call it self-preservation. I don't want my EP making a beer-fueled right hook at me." He took a sip. "You could use some water, you know."

Jim appeared to be struggling with whether and how to respond. Finally, he managed, "Mac is—well, she's getting it together. She'll be back." He was clearly speaking to persuade himself more than Will.

"She's not working in the industry, then?" Confirmation of what Charlie had implied. "So, she's researching? Teaching somewhere?"

That merited a sarcastic huff.

Pricked by his conscience, Will finally made the offer that had been on his mind since talking to Charlie earlier. "I could make some calls for her. Give her an _entrée_."

"No. That isn't—that won't—" Despite his inner voice protesting that he shouldn't even entertain this line of questioning, Jim struggled to find the exact words to use. Obviously, something hadn't gotten through yet. "You don't understand. _Mac—doesn't—go—out_."

That response was unexpected enough to give Will serious pause. "You're saying, what, she's some kind of recluse?"

Somewhat unsteadily, Jim got to his feet. "I ought to say good night to everyone. Believe it or not, we've _all_ had a shitty day, Will. So, unless you're here to fire me, I'll see you at the office tomorrow."

oooo

At 11am the following morning, Jim still looked distinctly unwell.

Having come in early solely to enjoy Jim's unhealthy pallor, Will even sat in on the pitch meeting. At the conclusion of the meeting, after the other staffers had filed out, he remained behind, hands laced behind his head in an affectation of anticipation.

Jim couldn't miss the opening.

"I—er, I think I probably owe you an apology for some of the things I said—or might have said—last night," he began, massaging his temple and missing direct eye contact.

"You'd had a few," Will conceded.

"Anyway, I apologize for the way last night's show went—"

"Fix the show and no apologies will be necessary."

"—And I'm sorry for the way I handled it when you came by the bar later."

Will shrugged, revealing through body language that he held no grudge for drunken Jim's impertinences.

"The show was a disaster. I was professionally embarrassed, and I know that I'm only still here because you haven't gotten around to firing me yet, and it just seemed that—"

"Drop it."

Jim dropped his head along with the line of conversation. "Okay."

"What you told me about MacKenzie—was that true?"

Abjectly-sorry-Jim was instantly replaced by wary-Jim. "I'm not sure I remember what—"

"You said that Mac was here in the city but that she isn't working. You characterized her as some kind of, I don't know—a _shut-in_."

"Well, like I said, I was sorta hammered last night and I shouldn't have—"

"I need an answer."

"It's complicated—"

"That isn't an answer."

"Mac doesn't go out," Jim admitted.

"She doesn't go out because of the injury." True to training, Will parsed to an invisible jury. Then, as if a realization, he added, "It's that bad."

"That's why I say, it's complicated. She thinks it's—well, that it's worse than—"

"But she's seeing a doctor?"

"Oh, yes."

"And you've seen her?"

At this, Jim frowned and braced himself on the conference table. "What's this all about, Will? You haven't hidden your animosity toward Mac since I've been here. I get it—the two of you had a bad break-up a while back. But I don't understand why the sudden one-eighty—"

"Charlie told me she'd been—" he swallowed distastefully in anticipation of the next word, "—disfigured. From the IED."

"That isn't exactly the word I would use."

Will couldn't tell if Jim was being frank or ironic, and the implications of either worried him.

To have trauma as profound as what Charlie and Harper had suggested, the injury must have been—well, _devastating_.

"Can you put me in contact with her? Give me her number? I'd like to—"

"Whoa." Jim held up his hand to brake Will's inexplicable proposal. "Given what I know about you two—which, admittedly, isn't much—I'm not sure that would be a good idea. And I don't want to get caught in the middle."

"Okay, then do this. Tell her that I'd like to talk to her. That's all. Leave it up to her."

oooo

Following the soul-sucking humiliation of the Arizona SB 1070 telecast, _News Night_ righted itself with a series of fact-driven exposés, foremost of which was Will's epiphany about the Tea Party Republicans. Jim's staff rallied to professionalism, so much so that, two weeks later, expectations were sky-high as Will snagged White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

During the rundown meeting, there had been a difference of opinion between the anchor/managing editor and his EP about the focus for the interview. Will wanted to concentrate on the administration's inaction on the Syrian crisis, and Jim pitched the importance of making the Obama White House come down decisively for or against the overtaxed authorization for military force as it pertained to the war on terror.

After the count and Herb's "Roll in," Will squared his shoulders for the _News Night_ fanfare.

"President Obama authorized airstrikes in Iraq last week. Earlier this year, the administration authorized the firing of Tomahawk cruise missiles against targets in Libya, enforcing a United Nations-designated no-fly zone. Meanwhile, the U.S. has executed drone strikes against elements of the Islamic State, and we continue to have troops in the region, throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq. Our guest tonight is Josh Earnest, Press Secretary for the Obama administration."

"Thanks for having me, Will," Earnest acknowledged through the monitor.

"Now, Mr. Earnest," Will said, swinging slightly in his chair to face the monitor where the Press Secretary waited to respond, "Does this administration have a cogent strategy for the Middle East, or is this all developed on an _ad hoc_ basis? Because it seems that, despite eight years of conflict, we are still wholly reactionary."

In his ear, Will heard a _click-click_ from Jim in Control, an unobtrusive way of telling him to stand-by for more information.

"Will, the president authorized the airstrikes in Iraq as part of his sustained counter-terrorism strategy, which—"

Will huffed impatiently. "But this seems to be in direct opposition to the Obama campaign platform, which advocated a gradual withdrawal of forces."

Another _click-click_, and several indistinguishable voices came over the IFB earpiece. Will winced at the interruption, hoping the camera was still on Earnest.

"—and, of course, the War Powers Act of 1973 gives the president the power to—"

"Will," Jim's voice prevailed. "I need you to pivot—"

"—or a declaration of war is needed from Congress. So, the administration is scrupulously adhering to the precepts of the—"

"_Don't let him get away with that bullshit, Billy."_

It was Mac's voice in his ear now, over the feedback unit.

_She was here, in Control._

He tried to maintain his on-air composure and follow the guest's discussion.

"_Press him on the AUMF."_

He stopped the other man in mid-sentence. "Mr. Earnest, I happen to agree with you, in that I don't think there's an immoral way to kill terrorists. But there's an _illegal_ way, and we're doing that. The administration is using as justification for these attacks the 2002 AUMF, an authorization for which Mr. Obama himself has called for repeal, on grounds that it is over-broad. Does the administration sense any irony in this action?"

"As you know, Will, Congress passed that authorization in 2002 to enable the previous administration to prosecute al-Qaida in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks—"

"But Mr. Obama is using it to target elements of the Islamic State—"

"—Recognized as an offshoot of al-Qaida, certainly of the same jihadist ideology," Earnest inserted in a slightly patronizing tone.

"_The Islamic State used to be part of al-Qaida, but they've since split ways, precisely over their ideological differences,"_ Mac's voice advised. _"Bring up al-Shabaab."_

Will pressed the point, hoping it appeared seamless. "But they aren't the same. ISIL and al-Qaida are no longer ideologically aligned with each other. Anyway, what does that mean for groups like al-Shabaab in Somalia, which has expressed violent, anti-American beliefs but has no organizational link to al-Qaida?"

"President Obama has interpreted the AUMF authority to extend to persons or forces that are allied with or support the Taliban or al-Qaida—"

Will interrupted again. "Yes, but there must be an _actual_ association with those groups in order for our offensive actions to fall within the purview of the AUMF. As of now, there's scant evidence of any alliance between those groups, operationally or organizationally. So, wouldn't that make Mr. Obama's use of the AUMF in these instances simply good political cover? And more than slightly hypocritical at that?"

"Will, the United States is facing a still-evolving enemy; our law on conflict must evolve with it. I object to your characterization of—"

"_Good job, Billy."_ Another double click from the IFB.

Jim's voice returned to Will's ear, prompting the next line of questioning. "Proposals to amend the AUMF—"

Will tapped his pen, signaling assent.

"The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has now voted down two separate amendments to repeal the 2001 AUMF. The administration hasn't commented on the proposed amendments or on the votes. So, what _is_ the Obama administration position on continuation of the AUMF?"

"Let's not over-simplify this, Will," Earnest dismissed. "The president wants to work with Congress to refine and ultimately repeal the AUMF. We're working with legislators on the Hill to ensure a thorough and comprehensive review, and we are hopeful that Speaker Pelosi will forward some workable legislation."

Will turned to Camera 1.

"We're out of time so we're going to have to end this here. Thanks to Press Secretary Josh Earnest for being here tonight. Stay tuned for _Capitol Report_."

Once the red light on the camera dimmed, Will yanked the IFB jack from the console. He cleared the studio in twenty feet, punching through the soundproof door and across the corridor into Control.

"Mac?"

A room of faces stared back.

Mac's face was not among them.

oooo

She had never been there.

Jim had explained that she had called in and he simply put her through the IFB.

Hearing her voice again, that old command and fury—that had been great. Especially after he had asked Jim to have her contact him; on some level, it indicated she was still willing to be led by him. He was surprised at how natural the partnership still felt.

But, then, to learn that she had never physically been in the studio, that she had simply _called it in_—that made it seem like a mirage, like a feint.

An hour later, having surrendered the suit to the intern and slipped back into his street clothes, Will stood near his desk, tucking keys, wallet, and coins back into his pockets. His phone, still on silent mode, suddenly vibrated noisily on the desktop.

"Yeah?" he answered, distracted. There was no immediate reply, so his next effort was tinged with annoyance. "Hello?"

Still nothing.

He dropped the phone and made to dismiss the call, but some tickle in the back of his brain made him stop short. He brought it back to his ear.

"Mac?"

"Tonight—it didn't go exactly as I'd planned. I'm sorry—just, you know, sorry. About everything.

I mean, Jim told me what you said—and I really wanted a chance, to talk—but that idiot you had on tonight, I just couldn't let that—"

He could almost picture her biting her lower lip, reverting to anxiety mode. _Almost_. He was having trouble picturing her at all now, and it troubled him greatly.

"'S okay. Although I like to think I would have gotten around to the AUMF on my own."

"Perhaps," she allowed, amusement evident in her voice. "Anyway, it seemed easier, frankly, to talk to you without having to wait for you to answer. Because you were—"

"Live. I was live."

She made a two syllable hum of acknowledgement.

"How's it going right now, with me actually talking back to you and everything?"

"Not as badly as I'd imagined."

"Good to hear."

Several long seconds of silence passed.

"I should probably go."

_Say something_, an inner voice warned him. _Stop her from signing off because you don't know when, if ever, she will—_

"Okay, Mac." Pause. "Thanks for calling."


	3. Face Value

**All's Fair in War and Love – ch3**

**Face Value**

He'd heard her voice. She had sounded the same.

Even if he could no longer picture her in his mind's eye, hearing her voice again appeared to confirm that things weren't as dire as Charlie had suggested. Charlie's ominous hints and Jim's evasions had worried him, briefly, but Will had _heard_ MacKenzie, had even _engaged in civil conversation _with her, so he knew now that everything was basically all right. Or, at least, nowhere as bad as he had been led to believe.

But by the time the car dropped Will at 2 Hudson, the euphoria had begun to fade.

In his determination to not reveal his relief at speaking with her, though, he'd allowed the call to end without promise of reprise. There were things he should have said, he now realized, and the obvious moment had passed—nay, _been thrown away_.

The niggling worry that seemed to disappear with Mac's call was back with a vengeance, and he was consumed anew at how to reestablish a connection.

Standing at the kitchen counter, his phone in his hand, he waited for a reason—an _excuse_—to occur so he could call her back. Justify having let her go.

_Again._

His finger hovered over her number on the _Recent Calls_ screen.

He waited, but a suitable—_believable_—reason refused to coalesce.

Finally, he tapped the screen anyway and listened to the ring.

When it got to four rings, he noted that there was no automatic rollover to voice mail. He was unsure if that was an encouraging sign.

-_Until_ he considered that she may have simply put the phone in a _Do Not Disturb_ mode. If so, she wouldn't hear it, wouldn't understand that he was calling her back.

_Seven rings_. How big must this new apartment of hers be, that she couldn't reach the phone in seven long rings?

_Nine rings_. Okay, so this must be a landline number and she had gone out in the interim.

At twelve rings, he disconnected the call.

He tried again a few minutes later, then waited an hour and made a third attempt.

Either MacKenzie wasn't home or she wasn't answering… _him_.

oooo

The next day was Saturday, and because Will was too dogged to be gracious in defeat, he waited only until mid-morning to try Mac's number again. This time, there was an audible click after three rings.

"Mac?" he prompted. "Look, last night, I didn't—and I wanted to, you know, go back and see if I could —"

"What are you talking about?" It _was_ her. She sounded wary.

"You called me last night—"

"Twice, for those of us who can count."

"Twice," he conceded, wincing. "And I sort of gave you a brush off and it wasn't what I'd intended."

"Oh. What did you intend?"

"I wanted to make sure that—"

"Make sure that the things people have been telling you are true?"

He winced again at her having so correctly divined his motivation.

"Will. You've ignored all my attempts at contact over the last few years. Then, suddenly, you reach out to me through Jim Harper, whom I know you've given an extra hard time at work simply because I recommended him to Charlie Skinner."

"He's a credit to you."

"Oh? Then, tell _him_, not me." Pause. "So, third time's the charm, Will. Are we finished now or is there something else?"

"Are you okay, Mac? Really okay? Because—" he sighed heavily, having decided to simply say what was really on his mind, "because I was sorry to hear—well, you know."

She didn't respond.

"I feel like maybe I'm to blame—"

"You aren't."

He persisted. "But I feel like I am. I feel as though I put everything in motion, when I told you to go—"

"Don't be such an egomaniac, Will. I chose where I went and what I did. Anyway, if either of us is to blame for everything that's happened since, it would be me, wouldn't it?"

He swallowed with distaste at the inevitable turn of the conversation. "Let's not—I don't want to go there right now."

"Okay. Let's—_not_." Pause. "I just can't figure why you suddenly want to re-connect with me."

There was a prolonged silence as he drew a blank on how to answer.

Probably because they had once been so close, he found himself genuinely pained by the realization of her plight. Not simply the piteousness of having been maimed. The idea of looking at oneself in the mirror each morning and understanding there was no road back to normalcy. Dealing with the reactions of others would be an ever-new and ever-constant assault. Gasps from children, discrete pointing. The averted glances of polite adults. The wealth of indignities visited upon someone so out of the norm.

The word "pity" had such a subtext of condescension to it, but pity—in its truest and most basic meaning—was what he felt. He was moved to regret and sorrow on her behalf. He felt even a _cosmic_ _unfairness_ that such a thing had happened to her, to someone as brilliant and vivacious as MacKenzie.

To the most beautiful woman he'd ever met in Real Life.

He took a deep breath and tried to stumble back to the question she'd asked.

"I, uh—I was upset to learn that you were injured over there. That the injury seems to have taken you away from the work that I know you love. I—I wish it hadn't happened."

"That makes two of us."

"What if—" his fingers polished the edge of the kitchen counter, "what if I made some calls? There are always opportunities for someone with your resume, just name a place and your price. I could even talk to Charlie about some kind of consulting position at ACN—he'd let you pick your hours, pick your stories. Oh, and if money's an issue—"

"You're still talking as though you feel guilty about something," she chided ironically.

_Touché_.

"But for old time's sake—for friendship's sake—what can I do for you, Mac?"

"There's nothing."

So succinct, so self-abnegating, so typically Mac.

It was also infuriating.

He was willing to overlook everything—her faithlessness, her lies, her foolhardiness in running off to a war. And she couldn't accept his magnanimity?

"Mac, wait—" He instantly forgot his earlier recriminations but he couldn't think of the thing he was supposed to say to keep her from going again. "What I mean is, this is fucking unfair, all of it, and I'd like to—I don't know, even the scales, I guess."

There was another protracted silence, a she digested his words.

"Thank you. But I should let you go."

"Don't hang up. Let's—" He broke off and started over. "I called you back last night, Mac, as soon as I got home. Three times, in fact. But you never answered. Why didn't you pick up?"

"I wasn't sure I could talk to you again."

"But by this morning, you'd changed your mind."

"Yes."

"If I were to call again, do you think you would answer?"

Long seconds dragged by.

"We'll see."

oooo

His resolve lasted until early Sunday evening, when he relented and tapped her number.

"Hello?"

"It's me again. I thought I'd check in and see how your weekend went."

"We just spoke yesterday," she reminded.

"It seems—_longer_. Anyway. What have you been up to today?"

"Oh, about page 231 of Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs."

"That's what you did? All day? Mac, it was a gorgeous day. You should've—"

"So, tell me, what were your outdoor activities today that allow you to lord it over me?"

"I went out and did a little shopping."

"You walked?"

"Uh—company car and driver. But it was still beautiful, just being outside."

"Outside—that is, from _inside_ the car." She made her customary hum of acknowledgement, irony plain.

Jim's words rang in Will's memory. _"You don't understand. Mac doesn't go out."_

As Will recalibrated, Mac spoke again.

"You're right, it was a pretty day. I'm in the middle of Manhattan but I still have a window." Amusement was in her voice. "Anyway, I don't know how welcome my opinion is, but I've had some thoughts about the show. Are we–you and I—civil enough now to exchange a few ideas? Because you really need to follow-up the Utoya Island massacre and the right-wing extremist—"

Despite the grisly prompt, he was relieved at the change in subject to work matters, so that he didn't have to address the reason why she didn't go out anymore. He huffed a laugh. "Say, what is this? A production meeting?"

"I don't want to breach whatever truce we've set here, Will, but as long as we're talking, I feel obliged to point out that—"

"Don't do that, Mac. Don't point things out right now."

It got very quiet on the other end of the line.

"Wait, what I mean is—yeah, we can talk about the show, if you want to. Your ideas were always, well, brilliant. But right now, I just wanted—well, I just wanted to catch up. Talk about you, not the show." He paused for a long moment. "I find that I've missed you and I wasn't even aware of it."

Ten seconds of silence passed before she responded.

"I've missed you, too." Her tone had softened with the admission. "But I've always been aware of it."

_Ouch_.

"I'd like to be your friend again, MacKenzie."

There was a long pause, as she evidently considered his words.

"How about if I schedule a lunch so you can actually meet Charlie Skinner in person, maybe at some place quiet and—"

"No."

"Hear me out—just meet him, he's a great guy and he'd like to—"

"_No_."

"MacKenzie." He torqued his jaw, aware of his newest misstep, and thought furiously for a compromise solution. Reaching none, his annoyance became apparent. "You can't just lock yourself away from the world."

She disconnected the call.

oooo

Will didn't call her for a few days, thinking to give her time to cool off from whatever he'd said to raise her ire.

On Wednesday night, he sat on his terrace, sipping a drink. Whenever his thoughts would drift to MacKenzie and the tenor of their last conversation, he tried to put it out of his mind. He'd made the effort. The ball was in her court now.

As if in response, his phone pinged with a text message.

Mac.

_Free to talk?_

_Yeah,_ he replied, crushing out his smoke and waiting for the ring.

"Who do we have on the line tonight? Why, it's MacKenzie from Midtown. You're talking to the Nightbird and you're live."

"I'm sorry I hung up on you the other night. I'd like to have our truce back."

"Well, you're in luck. The Nightbird is taking requests tonight and that one is easy. Granted. Now, is there anything else you'd like to hear tonight? Some soft jazz or soul? No blues, though."

He persistence in maintaining the Nightbird personae seemed to encourage her, as he'd intended.

"No blues," she agreed, "there's been enough of that already. Why don't you surprise me with something?"

"Ah. Something unexpected for the lady." Setting the phone to speaker, he propped it against the ashtray and reached for his guitar. Something soft, something evocative and subtle. He decided on Jobim.

When he finished, following an appreciative moment, she said, "That was lovely, Will. I've so missed hearing you play."

"The Nightbird is here all night."

"Then, perhaps you'll play another for me. But, first, going back to what we were talking about before—I really would like to meet Charlie Skinner in person. One day. It just isn't possible now."

At this, he finally broke character. "I've never known you to limit yourself, Mac."

"Things have changed."

"Maybe not. Alone is alone, not alive. And you really shouldn't live life just looking through a window."

"You're one to talk."

"Perhaps that's why I recognize it so well." He paused. "Why don't you let me come over for a little bit? It might do you a lot of good to see another human being."

"No. Please, don't.

It was the tone of her voice in the _please_ that made him acquiesce.

"Okay." He strummed a minor chord. "Well, MacKenzie of Midtown, how about another bossa nova?"

oooo

Friday night was an ugly, rainy mess, and when her buzzer sounded, MacKenzie could only assume Jim had forgotten something. He'd been by a few hours earlier, with his regular run of newspapers and periodicals.

She hit the button to open the door below, then threw the deadlock on her own front door.

"Mac?" The voice, a few minutes later, was decidedly not that of Jim. "You here?"

Will's voice. _Could it be?_

"MacKenzie?" He inched further in the doorway, his silhouette clearly outlined by the light behind him.

"Please go away."

"I can't."

"I thought you were Jim—"

"He gave me the address, but he doesn't know I was coming. I needed to see—"

"—To come see for yourself?" Bitter laugh.

"May I turn on a light?"

"No. The light hurts my eyes."

Jim hadn't mentioned any injury to her eyes in the IED blast and he would have, Will felt sure, if there had been any. He suspected another reason. Darkness was a fine refuge when you didn't want to be seen.

Will looked at the window, toward the eerie neon twilight of Times Square a few blocks distant.

"May I at least open these a bit?"

After a protracted pause, she allowed, "A little bit."

As he adjusted the blinds so that dim light fell in the room, he noticed that she withdrew further into the remaining shadows.

"You should leave, Will. I—I don't want you here."

Of all her protestations, that last grabbed at him. If his presence was truly unwelcome, he knew he needed to respect her wishes.

"If you really want me to go, Mac, I will. I don't want to upset you in any way. But I thought we were friends—that we had this truce, as you put it, and that you would trust me to—"

"Your pity would be unbearable."

He could only dimly see her, but he remembered enough of her body language to know that her head hung. As when she was defeated.

"Would my friendship be enough?"

"Oh, Will." She turned away in the darkness.

Pushing the front door closed behind him, he followed her into the room, keeping a careful distance from where she was.

"We _are_ friends, you know, Mac. It's a friendship that ought to transcend—"

"Transcend how I betrayed you?"

He really didn't want to go there, not this soon, but he knew he needed to deal with the issue since it had been raised. Besides, there was something he had always wanted to know.

"So, why'd you tell me?"

"Because I knew I couldn't look—"

"What, _look me in the eye_? Seriously? Doesn't it strike you as ironic that you _did_ tell me and you still can't look me in the eye?

"But I'm finding that none of that seems very important anymore, Mac. Something obviously was lacking in our previous relationship—I was too serious too soon, and you weren't serious enough soon enough. It doesn't have to define us today, though. Does it?"

Her voice was hesitant. "I don't think so."

"Good." He moved a bit nearer. "May I sit?" He didn't wait for her to respond, taking a corner of the couch. "Come talk to me. You can even pretend I'm just on the phone, if you want, if it makes it easier."

She sat at the opposite end of the couch, both hands on either side of the cushion, as if braced for sudden impact.

They sat in silence that way for a minute before he broke it.

"I was angry, sure, but mostly I was hurt. And the only way (I thought) I could hurt you back was to cut you off. Total banishment. So, I didn't read your emails and I didn't take your calls. I wanted to hurt you by withholding whatever it was you wanted, whatever was in my power to withhold. Another chance. A response. And forgiveness, of course, because withholding that would be the most hurtful thing of all."

He sighed. "I didn't know about the IED explosion."

"My friends and colleagues worked hard to keep it quiet."

"They succeeded," he agreed, grimly. "When Charlie told me—well, it made me realize, finally, that I was to blame for something between us. My reaction had set the next sequence of events into motion. I'm glad you're okay, Mac. Because you didn't deserve it."

A few feet away, she seemed to relax a little.

"I told you before, Will—that I made my own choices. And you don't deserve it either, the feeling-responsible part."

"Let me—I need to see you, Mac."

"To catalogue the damage?" The bitterness in her tone was so alien to what he remembered. "I can save us both the experience. A piece of hot metal caught me near the eye."

Part of him tried to picture the wound she described and part of him was shamed by even trying to imagine it.

He swallowed. "I'd still like to see you." And he stretched out his hand until it brushed hers.

In the darkness, he could see her face turn a few degrees toward him.

"Why?"

"Because you're still you. And I care."

Her voice became strained. "You shouldn't—and you won't if you—"

Before she could react to move away, he closed the distance between them and took her face in his hands. Even with only the ambient light from Times Square, he could see the evenness of her features, the unblemished smooth skin, the absence of any marring—

Will was jolted. After Charlie's hints, after Jim's ambivalence, after MacKenzie's own description—there was nothing. No disfigurement. No discernible difference, in fact, from when he'd last seen her.

She twisted from his grasp and moved away.

"Is your curiosity sated now?"

"Mac." Plainly dumbfounded, he let his hands hang as he wondered how to respond. "MacKenzie. I don't understand. It isn't like you said. There's nothing, no scar—no sign of an injury."

As he said the words, the truth dawned on him. The wound afflicting MacKenzie was that she _believed_ there was one, something so hideous as to compel exile.

"Mac, you can't believe—surely, someone's—" He let the words trail off and reached for her hand, pulling her down a hallway that he was certain would terminate in either a bedroom or a bathroom. Drastic action was warranted.

It was a bathroom. He scrabbled at the wall switch, but the light was lusterless and only pointed up the fact that there was no mirror in the room.

Will was sickened.

Meanwhile, Mac had covered her face with her hands. From the way her shoulders shook, he could tell she was crying.

He pulled her into his arms.


	4. The Face of Things

Mac's tears subsided twenty minutes later, but she still hadn't spoken, so Will guided her back into the living room and onto the couch. In the semi-darkness, she looked very small and miserable, and it tore at his heart. He suggested food, but all she would take was water, and only a few sips of that.

Not wanting to provoke more anguish but feeling that he had some responsibility to stay now, to be a calming influence, he settled on the couch himself, near enough to feel the heat of her body. After a few minutes, she slumped against him, still not speaking, and her breathing evened out.

_Good_, he thought. The exhaustion of tears would give her respite and give him time to consider what should come next.

He had come to her place out of curiosity and aloof concern, now morphed into bewilderment and alarm. On their telephone calls, Mac had sounded her normal self, but in person, tonight—this wasn't the MacKenzie he had known. The vital, fearless woman had been replaced by someone who hid in shadows and cut herself off from the world, someone who had inexplicably magnified an injury beyond reason.

Hours later, when the shadows and light finally played around the room in a familiar way, he touched her shoulder. "Mac, wake up. I have to go."

Her expression changed from the peace of sleep, to momentary confusion, to something that might have been relief or some pleasant emotion, before finally returning to the wary reserve he'd seen earlier.

"I'd like to come back," he hastened to add, "but right now, I should go home—shower, change. Brush my teeth." He made a weak smile. "That sort of thing. But I want to come back—that is, if you'll let me."

She still didn't speak, but looked away, and her hands twisted into knots on her lap.

"Mac." He gently used two fingers to guide her chin back to front. "MacKenzie, everything's going to be all right."

Then, without having planned it, neither the choreography nor the aftermath, he inclined his mouth to hers in the best kiss of reassurance he could muster. It had been years since they had kissed, years since he even considered the possibility. Even now, he hoped he wasn't implying a promise that he wasn't capable of delivering on.

"I'll be back."

oooo

Will's mind raged with questions as he exited Mac's building.

How did she get so fucked up? What good could come of him returning? He wasn't a psychologist and this situation clearly called for one.

On the other hand, he could hardly walk away now.

Plus, he had kissed her. He intended it as a gesture of comfort—encouragement—hope. But there it was. It could be interpreted as a pledge of something more.

Perhaps it _was_ something more. Perhaps it merely signaled his willingness to help, but perhaps he had wanted to show that he wanted to be a full partner in this. That she could rely on him. That he had affirmatively decided that bygones should be bygones, and that the future might be different from the past.

That he had _forgiven_—

He shook his head. He was putting the cart before the horse now. The first order of business was to find out what had caused Mac to have such a misperception and how to rectify it.

From the backseat of the taxi he'd flagged down outside Mac's place, Will punched Jim's number.

The hour was still early and Jim's voice was groggy with interrupted sleep. "Hello?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Will? Hey, it's—it's not even seven." _On a Sunday morning_, Jim left unsaid, but was plain in his indignant tone. "Is there something breaking—"

Impatiently, Will cut him off. "I said, why didn't you tell me she was like that?"

"She? Oh." The grogginess was replaced by wariness. "You went to see Mac. Is she okay?"

"She's great, except that she's _not_, not really. There's nothing wrong with her, but she acts like there is, and I—"

"Wait a sec—"

"No, _you_ wait a sec," Will shot back. "I thought there had been some explosion while she was embedded—that she had been _hurt._" He swallowed and spat out the definitive word. "_Disfigured_. That's what you and Charlie as much as told me. You said that was why she was living like some kind of fucking recluse in a city of twenty-five million people."

"I don't know what Charlie told you, exactly, but it was probably whatever he'd heard from whomever he'd heard it from. We tried to keep it quiet, but word gets out. Anyway, I told you that it wasn't as bad as she believed—"

"Is she crazy? Did that bomb blast scramble her brains? Because when we talked by phone, she sounded mostly the same. She sounded like Mac. But last night—"

"It's got a name, Will. It's called a dysmorphic disorder. An excessive preoccupation with an imagined physical defect. In her case, she's decided there's something about her face—"

"_There's nothing wrong with her,"_ Will insisted.

"Not to your eye, or mine. And to be perfectly honest, on some level, I think, not even to hers. But she has this, I don't know, this memory overlay that falsely connects the experience of the blast with some other trauma. She _really_ _was_ injured, you know—broken ribs, concussion, shrapnel wounds."

"Shrapnel to the face?"

"Yeah. She got a nick above the eyebrow. Left side. But it's a little scar, hardly noticeable unless she pulls her hair back. Even then, I think you'd have to know to look for it."

Will hadn't noticed it even when he'd stood directly in front of her. Of course, the light at her place had been subdued, when it hadn't been non-existent.

"Okay." Will processed what Jim had revealed. "But there are surgical options, right, that could—"

"Will, you're still not understanding what I'm saying. A little cosmetic surgery isn't really in order, the scar is that minor, and it wouldn't fix _this_ problem anyway." He paused. "Her doctor has her on anti-depressants that are supposed to help, and they've started some behavioral therapy."

"Does anyone know why? I mean, if there wasn't an injury that—" he found himself falling back to the repulsive and limited vocabulary, "—that _scarred_—_maimed_—her, why would she have this delusion?"

"Good question. I don't know the answer." Long exhalation. "I'd better give her a call."

"She's fine. I just left her."

"You upset her—"

"_No_. We talked last night. She fell asleep. I stayed the night, but you don't have to worry yourself—it was all perfectly chaste."

"Don't fuck with me, Will. I should have never given you her address—I thought you were just going to, I don't know, send flowers or ice cream. But you barged in there like gangbusters, thinking you were going to stage some sort of one-man intervention, and you had to stay the night because you shook her up so badly. And I'm still going to give her a call, just to make sure everything's all right."

The taxi pulled alongside the front of Will's apartment building and he fumbled to pass his credit card to the cabbie.

To Jim, he said simply, "Suit yourself."

oooo

After the usual ablutions had been attended to, Will stood on his terrace, surveying the slower Sunday morning pace of the city. The rain was gone and the early afternoon sun glinted off the smooth-fronted buildings.

He had promised her he would return, but now, cold reason stepped in and he wondered if that was the best course of action for her. Or for him. This situation with MacKenzie, whatever psychic trauma had been triggered by that fateful encounter with an IED—well, it was obviously bigger than he'd thought.

_Body Dysmorphic Disorder_. He'd looked it up online since Jim told him the name, so, yeah, it really was a thing. A self-imposed conviction—more like a delusion, really—of a personal physical flaw, invariably leading to depression and social avoidance. Even to his medically uneducated eye, Will clearly saw the symptoms.

But, basically, it was a psychological illness. He was ill-equipped to deal with anything of that nature. Jim said she was in therapy and, by inference, that Will should back out of the whole scenario.

He should call her. Make some excuse as to why he couldn't return. She'd probably be relieved. Anyway, he certainly would be, because he didn't think he could carry the burden of pretending that she _wasn't_ perfectly whole and unmarred.

_Some other trauma_. Another phrase that Jim had used this morning, and the one that gave him true pause. Feeling responsibility for Mac hadn't been mere _noblesse oblige_ on Will's part—he saw the connection. Whatever delusion she was grappling with, Will had facilitated it, fed it, with the exile and the self-shaming.

He had an obligation to go back, to live up to the claim of friendship he'd made last night. And this morning he had made a promise, an implicit one, in the form of an impulsive kiss. He couldn't back out now.

oooo

It took a long time for Mac to respond to Will's buzz for admittance to the building, and the thought that she might not occurred to him as he waited. Finally, though, the dull metallic noise sounded, followed by the thump of the bolt being thrown, and he pushed through the outer door from the street, balancing a bag over his shoulder and another under his arm.

Upstairs, she had left the door to her flat ajar, so that he had only to ease in. He placed the bags on the kitchen counter and let his eyes adjust to the ambient light. "Mac?"

Craning around, he finally spied her closing the door behind him. "There you are."

"Here I am," she agreed, weakly.

"I brought you something to eat."

She walked past him to the counter and peered in the brown paper bag.

"Smells like Italian—"

"It is." He decided to risk some levity. "I wasn't sure if our truce would hold up under Thai food."

The gentle tease worked. She seemed amused. "That might have been a test."

"Beer or water?" he asked, taking a six-pack of bottles from the bottom of the bag.

"Water for me," she said. "But if you want a beer, go ahead."

"No. I'll stick with water tonight, too. We'll save the beer for another night." He filled two glasses with tap water and shoved the six-pack into the fridge. Turning to the oven, he set a preheat temperature and set the aluminum pan onto the top rack. "Lasagna. How do I set a timer?"

"How long?"

"Thirty to forty minutes."

"Here—" and she helped him set it. Then, half turned, arms braced on the opposing counter, she asked, "How noble are you planning to be, Will?"

"Noble?"

"The food. Water instead of beer. Whatever it was that happened this morning." She paused knowingly and it was clear she referred to the kiss he'd given her before his earlier departure. "The forbearance must be choking you by now."

Will's heart sank. He'd made too many presumptions. Jim must have called, as he'd threatened, and curdled things with Mac.

"I can go, Mac. If you want me to, I will."

"No. It's just that I—" She walked into the other room. "I'm afraid you think you're here to fix me. Clearly, you think I'm… that I'm not well."

"I think healing can take a long time, Mac," he said slowly, carefully. "I'm kind of proof of that, aren't I? Rage is kind of my family disease—that and the cruelty, of course. I thought I would be immune to it, you know, that maybe it would skip a generation—"

"Will, you don't have to—I mean, I understood why you reacted that way. I never faulted you for it."

"You should have." He reached for her hands. "Mac, we need to talk about this. What happened between us before is connected to what's happening now, I'm sure of it."

She took a defensive step backward. "Why did you have to come here? Why couldn't we let things go on as they were? Just talking by the phone was working—"

"Talking on the phone was _not_ working." He advanced to a few inches of where she stood. "Mac. Why did you come back to New York?"

"I didn't have anywhere else—"

"You had a hundred other options, the least of which was to have stayed on with CNN. But you came here."

Her profile sank, defeated. "I needed a center, a—"

"You needed something from me. You needed something that only I could give you," he said, taking her hands.

Then, brokenly, with each word punctuated with a small hesitation, she said, "I get that you can't love me anymore, Will. I know that I'm to blame. I just need some kind of absolution, because I never meant to hurt you."

"There's plenty of blame to go around. But whatever you need—whatever I can give you—it's yours."

Intuiting his meaning, at last, she raised her eyes to his, the first time she had directly met his gaze. "I've done nothing to deserve forgiveness, Will, and everything _not_ to."

"I am just so relieved that you're here, Mac, that everything is finally in the right perspective. Getting you back safely is the big thing. Mistakes from three years ago are—well, they seem pretty small right now."

He reached a hand forward, thinking to stroke her hair and reassure her.

She stopped his hand. "We don't have that sort of relationship anymore, Will. And I'm—well, I'm not the same."

"_It is imperceptible_—your injury—that's what we're talking about now, right?"

"How can you not see—"

"I _do_ see. I see the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in real life. And I'll always be in love with you. That tiny scratch is just a reminder of your courage. Wear it like a fucking medal."

"You're—_what_?" She canted her head and strained at the sudden, inexplicable, tantalizing _non sequitur_. "Say that again."

"I need you to love me again, Mac, because I am so very tired of grieving the loss of what we had."

Her eyes widened. "I do—I never stopped—but you can't, not now—"

"Especially now." His hands moved to rest on her shoulders.

"Will, I broke your heart—and mine—three years ago. You can't mean that—"

"I mean precisely that. What I said. That I love you and that I'll always love you." Then, confident of his victory, at both his own flash of insight and her dawning understanding, he couldn't help but smile. "Give it up, MacKenzie. And, speaking as someone with some knowledge of contract law, I believe this is the point where we should make this agreement binding. Let's, um, seal it with a kiss or something."

Eyes bright, she nodded, and he moved his lips to hers, gently, tentatively, as if enjoying the anticipation of kissing her again. Her lips were soft and warm, and he sensed her breath catch at his touch. As he drew back, he searched her face for a clue to her emotions.

"Are we okay, Mac?" he asked, pulling back slightly.

"Mmm. Yes." She smiled back, a smile that might have looked like bravery under heartbreak had her eyes not been crinkled with pleasure. This was everything she had wanted and more. This was the restoration of hope.

Pressing her mouth back to his and responding with a small gasp of pleasure when he gently parted her lips with his tongue, she sighed into another kiss. Instinctively, their torsos fused together. When he broke the kiss, she pushed her face into the hollow of his neck and rested with a sound of utter contentment.

"Well. That went better than I thought it might."

"You rehearsed this?"

"Telling the woman I love that I still love her after everything we've been through? Goddamn right I rehearsed. Glad I didn't blow my lines, too." He pulled back to gauge her response. "Still okay?"

"Truthfully?"

That was it. His heart plummeted at the implication of an unpleasant revelation.

"I think we ought to take the lasagna out of the oven. Or, at least, turn it off. Because I think—I think we have some catching up to do—before we want to think about food."

Finally, he caught her meaning and laughed. "I'd never—I mean, you know I'd never turn down the chance to—but maybe we should—maybe you need to decompress a little—you may have been too surprised—"

"Too surprised? As in, going from standing still to lightspeed?"

He grinned. "Exactly."

"Anyway, I think your words right now are being undermined by—" She made a pointed glance southward, at the sudden bulge in his jeans.

"Point taken. Kitchen is—this way?"

She giggled slightly at his comic exit, and when he returned, took his hand and led him down the hallway to the bedroom. There, a slight self-consciousness crept into their manner. It had been three years, after all, and both harbored concerns that the techniques that had once been so familiar were now… well, _too_ familiar and perhaps irrelevant.

His fingers kneaded the buttons of her blouse until they parted, then he pushed the silky fabric over her shoulders, and, suddenly, nothing seemed irrelevant or foreign.

"Is this what you had in mind?"

"I could ask you the same question. But, yes."

Brushing the backs of his fingers along her jawline, he murmured, "My beautiful MacKenzie." Then, feeling her stiffen slightly, he repeated it and added, "Alluring, fascinating, irresistible. How did I ever—"

He allowed the words to trail off as she dropped her face, her lower lip tucked between her teeth in a recognizable signal of uncertainty. Lifting her chin, he saw the shininess in her eyes.

"This," she began, "this is the part of my daydream that I've worn threadbare by replaying it. The part where you tell me you love me again."

"I do love you. Body and soul, heart and mind. Three empty years are on me. My stubbornness and pettiness." Then, threading his fingers through her hair and lowering his mouth to meet hers, he kissed her with the ardency to match his words. "I love you, MacKenzie. Believe me yet?" His lips moved to her neck, tracing tiny kisses in further proof.

She made a tight nod, emotion threatening to overwhelm her, and he folded her into his arms for a quiet moment of reassurance. He knew the importance of communicating that she was wanted as well as needed, that his feelings weren't motivated by pity or as some well-intentioned do-it-yourself therapy.

Finally, she looked up and smiled, a genuine smile devoid of any hint of self-deprecation. She led him to the bed and pushed him to sit on the corner of it, standing between his legs, lightly resting her hands on his shoulders. His eyes widened appreciatively at the view of her breasts, and he brought up one hand to caress her. She felt a reciprocal warm tingle starting between her legs and spreading upward. Slowly, his hand continued to circle her breast, tracing the contour. Encouraged by her breathy gasp of pleasure, he brought his mouth to her and used his tongue to tease her nipple to peak.

Her hips began to gently sway in response to his attentions, and he curled his fingers under the elastic waistband of her pants, tugging them down and off. Then, he pulled her down to the bed and, propped on one elbow, resumed kissing her, loving the familiarity of the sounds she made. In the fraction of a moment when he paused, he reflected on the irony that he had once forcefully tried to deny this attraction to her, had tried to push everything about her from his mind, and how utterly futile his efforts had been.

Despite supporting himself on his arm, Will's kisses pinned Mac into the bed and she reveled in the feel of him above her, his breath mingling with hers, his hardness bearing down against her thigh. She tugged at his shirt, prodding him to cast it and his jeans off, then brought her hand up to brush his cheek and card through his hair, all the while pressing against the warmth of his now bare chest.

Will slid his other hand from fondling her breast to the apex of her legs, his fingers gently probing her cleft, petting and stroking until she made soft sighing sounds. His fingers teased and circled her clit, waiting until her hips arched upward before he eased the pressure. Meanwhile, he kept up the gentle survey of her mouth with his tongue, his lips soft and insistent against hers.

With a soft huff, she finally turned from his mouth.

"I need to feel you—be inside me, Billy."

He fumbled for his jeans, retrieving a foil-wrapped disc. She raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

Rolling on the condom, he felt sheepish under her gaze. "Not something I normally travel with, in case you're wondering. Think of it as my lottery ticket for the evening."

"Lottery ticket," she repeated with a wry smile.

"Come here. I'm claiming my jackpot."

oooo

Again, he woke first, a nod to his workday circadian rhythms and, perhaps, to her continuing emotional exhaustion. He lay for a minute, listening to her gentle breaths, before he finally rolled over to face the still-sleeping Mac.

The morning light, such as it was, was still dim, but the angle was right, as it had never been the night before, and he was able to study her face.

_Above the left eyebrow_, Jim had said_._

It took close study to finally notice the small crescent of silvery skin. Insignificant by any standard, almost unnoticeable.

How had such a minor scrape taken on such dimensions that it could put someone like Mac in a virtual box, deprive her of the profession she loved, isolate her, cut her off from—

Suddenly, he knew. It was punishment. Self-flagellation for something that had happened years before. Jim, again, had deduced part of this. A false memory that associated the injury from the blast with something else.

Perhaps the blow up of them?

Her eyes opened.

"Good morning," he smiled.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Huh—what?" Then, deciding that since she was clearly aware that he'd been scrutinizing her, he ought to come clean, he nodded. "It's really imperceptible, Mac."

"That's what Jim said." She rolled from her side to her back and stared up at the ceiling. "What the doctors say."

"What do you say?"

She didn't respond, so he began to trace a finger up her shoulder, along her neck and where it met her jaw.

"I meant it, last night. Every word."

She stopped his hand with hers, kissed it, and made a wordless nod.

"What say you make the coffee and I'll make the eggs?" It was an old catch-phrase between them, the former division of labor on leisurely mornings.

oooo

An hour later, Will pushed away his plate and drained his mug of the last dregs of coffee.

"You're coming back, though, right?"

It was the second time she'd asked, and since her hearing otherwise appeared normal, he chalked it up to her still needing the reassurance. After all these years, her doubt was understandable.

"If you won't turn me away, I'll be back. Right after the show. And you know you're welcome to—"

She shook her head.

"Okay for now, but one day I'm going to insist. I want you to meet the team, everyone in the newsroom, all those people that Jim has probably talked about. But mainly, I want you to meet Charlie, Charlie Skinner. He's out of town today and Tuesday, some damned management retreat or news director convention or something, but we could meet for lunch on Wednesday—"

"No."

He realized his gaffe. She was afraid of public places, of the stares of strangers. "All right, how about a breakfast meeting in the AWM executive dining room? It's private. Just the three of us. We'll include Jim, if you want."

"_I can't_." It was a plea this time.

MacKenzie wasn't fixed. Even fairy tale endings wouldn't solve what medicine hadn't. Loving her, letting her know she was loved was not enough.

Love was just love, after all, and not magic.


	5. A Final Word

**Ch 5**

**A Final Word**

Reaction set in virtually the moment the door closed behind him.

He was gone. Gone back to the world he still moved through so effortlessly, so unthinkingly.

And MacKenzie was alone, the headiness of rediscovered feelings slowly yielding again to overwhelming doubt, to the persistent naggings that this reconciliation hadn't been _earned_, wasn't _deserved_, could only be childish wishing that would be cruelly exposed in the final chapter.

_Get out of my sight. I can't stand to look at you._

His words back then had wounded her, grievously, and sent her spinning across three oceans

Had anything changed to make her worthy of forgiveness?

Moreover, was he _capable_ of forgiving her?

She didn't believe he had lied to her this weekend, that he would be capable of such subterfuge—but perhaps he would have a change of heart later. Perhaps he wouldn't be able to _un-hear_ that long ago confession, _un-see_ Brian in his mind's eye, _undo_ the damage that she had inflicted three years earlier.

Could anything _ever_ change between them?

She _owed_ him for having hurt him—it was why she'd come back, albeit with Jim as her proxy. Even if they wanted to reconstitute this relationship, there would always be an imbalance between them. If it wasn't merely the past, it would be the future as well, because of this misshapenness—this malformity—this scar that physically branded her perfidy.

Will may have been magnanimous earlier, but reality would inevitably return. He was an attractive man, brilliant and gregarious. He wouldn't want to be tied to a scar forever.

She went to the closet and rummaged, finally retrieving an old duffle bag and tossing it on the bed.

_You expect too much of me. And I would disappoint you again._

Moving to the dresser, she began to empty the drawer.

oooo

Will's jaunty mood at Monday's final rundown meeting was so unmistakable and so out-of-character as to provoke exchanged glances and raised eyebrows up and down the table. Martin and Maggie, each of whom had suffered withering dressing-downs from the anchor in the previous week—Martin for having screwed up the teleprompter feed and Maggie for having spilled diet soda over Will's handwritten draft copy—did a great deal of eye-rolling while trying to maintain poker faces. Neal, on the other hand, had no such compunction and wore his astonishment openly.

Will ignored them all. He was encouraged. Mac actually seemed better. Not _fixed_—not yet—but _better_.

Things will be better, he declared internally. New beginning. They would start fresh.

"Okay, Will?"

Jim hung in his sight, hunched over the table. "I said, the A block is going to be either the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister or the new UN sanctions against Iran. Your call."

Will pushed back in his chair, deciding to exercise his position as managing editor. "I don't like either one. Don't we have something a little more relevant to, I don't know, _Americans_? Our viewers?" He grimaced. "Seriously, we can't find something important that's going on in any of _50_ states?"

"It was the fourth Japanese prime minister in three years," Jim began, before realizing that defending the choice was doomed already. "Okay, okay. We could move up the story about ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan, a hundred thousand fleeing across the border to Uzbekistan—"

"Whoa. Stop," Will waved his hands to stop the recital. "You're missing my point." Then, turning to Kendra, "Don't we have anything—um, more _local_? Say, anywhere on the North American continent?"

"Well, there's some late word from the Pentagon that General Stanley McChrystal may be coming home early from his assignment as commander of the American forces in Afghanistan," Gary Cooper piped up from across the table. "Probably on account of the interview in _The Rolling Stone_ where he trashed Obama."

"Okay," Will stabbed a finger in exaggerated agreement. "That's what I'm talking about. Did we get a date for the turnover and who's reliving him?"

"Well—no." Gary looked down. "Actually, it wasn't a release, it was just some—"

"Gossip." Will tossed his legal pad on the table with a sigh of disgust. "Puzzle palace gossip."

"They said a release would be coming tomorrow," Gary added, somewhat apologetically, reluctant to let it go.

"There was a pipeline explosion in west Texas this morning." When the table of faces turned toward her, Tess added, "No one injured," and deflated.

"High rise fire in New Jersey," Martin volunteered. "Right now. There's a lot of smoke on the East River."

"Maybe that's a bit _too_ local," Will admitted. "Leave it for NBC-4."

Jim nodded slowly. "So, we'll go with the original slate?"

Long pause. "Yeah."

At Will's uneasy acquiescence, the staff began to file out.

"Uh—Will?" Jim capped his dry erase marker and stood awkwardly at the end of the table until they were alone. "Is Mac—"

"She's fine."

"But she took it okay when you—_saw_ her? I mean, she's pretty sensitive about—"

"We've got to stop thinking of her as if she's some kind of ghost—and stop treating her that way, too. Mac's going to be okay. Needs some reassurance—and something to do besides sit alone and brood."

Jim shook his head in disbelief. "You aren't going to make this go away with a kiss, Prince Charming. There's a _bona fide_ neurosis that has to be acknowledged and—"

"—_And_ _treated_. You've just been indulging it, Scooter, almost aiding and abetting it. Maybe even projecting your own anxieties a little. Mac's problem has a solution, and we're going to find it. Treatment, doctors, whatever she needs—"

"You just don't get it. There's been a long line of doctors and a Frankenstein's laboratory of treatments. She needs—"

"—She needs a roadmap for the way back. She can't stay on the sidelines forever. And we both know that there's nothing wrong with her, not really—well, nothing that can't be put right with some time and patience and—"

"—And you."

Will let a beat go by. "That's right."

"Jim?" Gary Cooper hung in the door. "We're having problems rendering the feed from the guy in Istanbul. Some kind of problem with the RTX interface. I think Jake could use your brain right now."

"Be there in a minute."

When Gary had departed, Jim gathered his papers, not noticing when his phone fell to the carpeted floor. He looked at Will. "What we were talking about before—you're willing to take this on?"

"Not that it's any of your business—but, yeah. I am."

"Well, for both your sakes, I hope you're right."

oooo

Thirty minutes into the show and everything was going smoothly. Will had worked his way through the international stories and was parsing the complexities of the four "—Stans" (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgrzstan) a half a world distant, both literally and in concept to Middle America.

It was a grueling slog.

In Control, Jim hovered over Jake's switching console, watching to see if the tweaks to the graphics processing unit worked.

"Back in sixty," Herb advised the room.

"Hey, Jim. You know that high rise fire that Martin mentioned earlier? You might want to take a look at this." Gary held up his cell.

Jim's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Where's the feed?"

"Local. Pooled stuff—"

"That's changing," Kendra interjected. "CNN's got an inset right now."

"Live?"

"Yep."

"Five alarms now. I've never even heard of five alarms for one fire."

"How many firefighters is that?"

"Depends on the municipality, but it has to do with trucks and ladders and resources, not just the firemen. A hundred guys, maybe." Gary shrugged. "I'll find out, though."

"Good." Jim made a swift calculation. "Okay, when we come back, we're dumping out of C block and we're going to a live shot from Channel 7. Kendra, I need some fire authority—"

"I'm already calling."

"You following all this, Will?"

"So, we're really covering fires now?"

"Back in thirty," Herb interrupted, of necessity.

"I'm putting the feed on your monitor so you can—"

"Jesus Christ." Will's utterance made plain that he now had the video. "If we're going live with this, I'm going to need some information at hand—"

"We're waiting for the deputy fire chief—" It seemed like the best time for Kendra to volunteer her booking coup.

"Got it," Jim affirmed. "Maggie, pull together some building stats and get me a read out on stability—in fact, just find me an architect who can go on air."

"Back in ten." Herb's countdown was relentless.

"Will, we're going to be sending you stuff as we get it and we'll patch you to the fire chief when he comes on line. In the meantime, you've got the video. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so let the video feed talk while we scramble in here."

Heady with the fast, spontaneous pace of breaking news, Tamara reacted immediately when Kendra called to her to take the incoming call and then connect the caller through to Will in the studio. But because this was, in fact, breaking news, a lot of the usual cues were bound to be missing. Which is why Kendra thought her meaning was obvious (answer the _new_ call, _then_ patch through the caller who was holding). Also, it was why Tamara made the epic but entirely understandable mistake of forwarding the wrong call.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

"This is Will McAvoy and you're on _News Night_." _Oh, so smoothly the patter rolled out_. "Who am I speaking to, please?"

"Russ—Russell Frost."

"I understand you're on the scene of the blaze at the National Building in Newark—"

"That's right."

"At the fire command post?"

"Uh, no." Pause. "Are you _really_ Will McAvoy?"

For a moment, Will almost lost his composure. _This was the best the_ _goddam prodigy EP could give him_? Will was supposed to be talking with the scene commander of the Newark fire department, but this guy sounded like a total rube.

He cleared his throat and tried to resume. "Okay. What exactly is your position with the fire department, Mr. Frost?"

"I work here. At MCI Worldcom. We're on the 31st floor."

Will was aggravated at having to feel his way through this interview and extract the info the viewers would want. "But you're at the Incident Command Post now—"

"No, I'm on 31."

"You're, uh, _where_? Did I understand you to say that you are presently _inside_ the building? You're on the 31st floor right now? As we speak?"

"Yes."

As Will struggled to recalibrate in the face of an unexpected interviewee, the ACN Control Room erupted in voices.

"Who's he talking to?"

"I'm soooo sorry—I must've patched through the wrong—I mean, I've got the Deputy Fire Chief holding on line 3—"

Jim mustered a glare that squelched further apology/explanation from Tamara and barked over his shoulder, "Someone get ahold of the cell service—I want some assurance that that call is really coming from the building on fire. I don't want Will punked on live air."

"What do I do with the guy on line 3?" Tamara was squirming now.

Jim toggled his mic.

"Will, we put the wrong call through. Why don't you stay with this guy until the station identification break coming up in 15? He's on scene, lends some color and immediacy. We'll switch you to the Incident Commander when we come back from break."

Jim exhaled heavily, arching back, lacing hands behind his head. "Okay, let's scramble. I want to know everything about the structure and fire protocols."

"Uh," Maggie held up her notepad like a trophy. "Newark National Building Newark, built in 1931. Former Essex Bank Building. Architectural style called Mid-Atlantic, brick and limestone. Same architect that did Newark city hall. There are some famous murals on the mezzanine." She shrugged. "Thirty-four stories, last major renovation in 2002 but there some sort of repairs or facelift has been underway on the 28th floor. Sixteen elevators. Class II Standpipe and sprinkler system, retrofitted." _Whatever that means_.

"Stairs?"

"East and west stairwells, but the west stairs are offset above the 21st floor because of the placement of elevator machinery."

"Coming up on break," Herb warned from the console. "Three—two—and we're out." He pushed back in his chair, the screens of three monitors having shifted to the ACN logo and stinger.

"Will, we've got only 15 seconds, so we're going to transfer the caller to—"

"No." Will's eyes flashed from the monitor. "I'm staying with Russell."

"But the deputy fire chief's waiting—"

"Let him wait. And, oh, by the way, ask him what he's doing to get people out of a building on fire."

"Will—"

"Don't touch this call, Jim."

"Roll in."

"We're back now and I'm talking with Mr. Russell Frost, an employee of a firm located in the National Building, where we've had reports of a fire. You said you were on the 31st floor, Mr. Frost—why weren't you evacuated?"

"I'm the warden for 31 through 34, so I was the one doing the evacuating up here. By the time I got everyone out, the stairs were real smoky, so the fire people told me to stay put until they could get someone up here."

"Your building, the National Building, was built in 1931, but I'm told it has been retrofitted with sprinklers and a stand pipe system—"

"I heard that, too. The sprinklers haven't actuated where I am—I guess that's a good thing, because it means the fire isn't near me—"

From Control, Jim toggled his mic again. "Will. I—uh—just so you know—I mean, I was just told—the fire fighters can't get above 27 right now—"

"—But I don't mind tellin' you I'd like to see some fire rescue soon. Everything just smells like burnt toast."

"Is there fire where you are?"

"Smoke. Lots of smoke coming from the stairs. The door is ajar and smoke is just pouring through."

"Can you move away?"

"Trust me, I'm about as far away as I can get."

"Okay, hang in there, Russell. People are on their way to you."

It was a lie. He was lying to this poor man now, not to mention lying to the viewers. The lie was one of comportment as much as compassion, because even a highly-intelligent, well-educated TV news anchor didn't have the emotional tools to serve up death to the audience in real-time.

oooo

"Charlie Skinner! I thought that was you!" The man in the too-tight suit lunged forward with his hand outstretched.

Dumbly, Charlie shook the man's hand, trying to place the face and account for the overweening familiarity.

"Mike Kaufman. Most recently with CBS."

_Oh._ Perhaps their paths had crossed at CBS during Charlie's tenure at CBS? But before Charlie could make any association, the man hurried with more data.

"Not when _you_ were there, of course—although you were still being talked about by then. In a good way, I mean."

"What're you doing for CBS?" Charlie managed, trying to be conversational.

"Unfortunately, we parted ways in the last round of news division cuts. Freelanced a couple of projects for NPR, but I was hoping ACN might be looking—"

_Uh oh. Job seeker_. Charlie's head swiveled, looking for a way out.

"—And given what's happening right now, I thought I might as well make the pitch."

"What's happening right now?" Charlie frowned and leaned closer.

"The fire—I mean, ACN has it live, which is good, but whoever's producing McAvoy tonight has got him tied to some sort of survivor narrative, and there's—"

_What the fuck?_

Charlie wasn't alarmed, not really, but he knew he ought to check out what the other man was telling him. If for no other reason than to exit this conversation before it reached the awkward questions about whether ACN was hiring.

"Where's the TV?"

"Empire Ballroom, just outside."

Charlie made an abrupt about-face and weaved between fellow conference attendees, faces familiar and _un_-, toward the meeting room. A monitor was on, turned to News Night. There was no audio but the chyron blared, _Survivor Clings to Hope Amid Conflagration_.

_What English major crafted that one-liner_, Charlie wondered, beginning to build a head of steam.

In the anchor chair, Will McAvoy was visibly anguished and uneasy. He leaned heavily upon one arm, a vertical line of concern between his eyebrows and a strange twist to his mouth. Charlie recognized immediately the parallels to that long ago 9/11 marathon broadcast.

_Jesus Christ. This was eavesdropping on death. _

Knowing he had to stop it, Charlie reached for his phone.

oooo

Her packed bag was at the door.

She would contact Jim about the rest, the lease. Perhaps she could return eventually, when time and distance had muted Will's impulsive optimism about them. About _her_.

Common decency required that she give him some reason for running out on him (_again_), so she looked at a blank piece of paper and tried to think of the right words. Honest, gentle, but brief and final, so that he would understand the impossibility of them… together… now…

But the words wouldn't come. She couldn't say she didn't love him (_she did_), nor that he didn't care for her (_she had at least been convinced of that_). He had been trying to give her something—empathy, courage, faith in herself—and the attempt alone was touching. She couldn't simply repudiate his compassion. She had to honor his gift without accepting it.

_Perhaps if she could see his face once more—_

MacKenzie turned on the television.

As soon as she comprehended what was happening, she fumbled for her phone.

Why didn't Jim—_or literally anyone else_—realize the folly of putting that caller from the burning building on live air? It was ghoulish, it smacked of voyeurism—more like _snuff television_ than genuine news. Apart from the cringeworthy pathos, this was not valid information for a news telecast. It wasn't some feel-good human interest fluff—this story would have an inevitable, tragic end.

Moreover, she realized it had to be personally torturous for Will. Having to moderate someone's last moments, as overheard by an audience of one million strangers. There was no dignity in this for either the doomed victim or the hapless journo who took the call.

Jim didn't pick up, so she took a deep breath and tried Charlie Skinner directly, but his office phone was obviously not staffed after normal business hours. She didn't have a mobile number for him. Finally, in desperation, she tried the ACN switchboard, the least precise of her efforts to communicate.

_Thank you for calling Atlantis Cable News. Your call is very important to us, but all our operators are busy at this time. If you will wait on the line, someone will be with you in-_

oooo

"_What is going on there_? Who made the fucking editorial decision to put a dead man walking on my flagship show?" Charlie raged. "This isn't reality TV—Will isn't some goddam bachelor who awards a lily to the man who dies on live air."

Instinctively, Jim ducked at the chewing out he was getting. "I know—I'm sorry—we're going to—"

"Listen to me, son. You're going to cut that feed as delicately and as _humanely_ as you can in the next two minutes, or I will be over there to beat the shit out of you, I don't care how much kale you eat!"

"Yes, sir," Jim managed, wincing as he put down the Control landline and turned back to his crew, all of whom now feigned ignorance of what they'd just overheard from the news division president.

"Kendra, make sure DC is standing by for the hand off. Herb, I'll need a count-down and Jake, you need to make sure that commercial package is ready on his cue."

Toggling his mic, Jim lowered his voice for an anchor who would have to follow his instruction over another conversation. "Will, we're going to have to cut—"

Unable to respond directly, Will looked directly into the camera and slowly, almost imperceptibly moved his head from side to side. _No._

"It isn't optional, Will, Charlie's insisting. Try to bring this conversation to a point of closure, or something, in a minute or so."

On the monitor, Will's eyes narrowed and his lower lip jutted up a tiny bit, but he forced his thoughts back to the voice in the studio.

"You still with me, Russ?"

"Yeah." The voice was muffled and there may have been low coughing. "Is there any word yet—about firemen—"

"Perhaps—perhaps you'd rather be talking to someone else right now—perhaps there's someone we can connect you—"

"No one else to talk to. Divorced, no kids. Folks gone a long time. Can you stay on the line with me, please, until they get here?"

More coughing. "I tried to cover the vents with folders. Used bottled water to soak my shirt."

"Is smoke coming through the vents, too?"

"I think so. Hard to tell. Everything three feet above the floor is kind of hazy." Pause. "It's gettin' kind of hot, and I'm hearing some really strange sounds."

"What kind of strange sounds? Describe them."

"Like a groaning sound, maybe? I don't know. And running water, I hear water."

Through the IFB, Will heard an unrecognized voice from Control provide, _sotto voce_, the reason: "Probably a breached standpipe. That would account for the sound of water."

"Ten seconds," Herb intoned.

"Tamara, keep the patch call with Will—Kendra, tell DC to take it on Herb's count—"

"—Three, two—and we're out." Herb rolled back in his chair, plainly displeased at the perturbation to routine.

"Maggie and Martin—stay on Will. Whatever he needs… do that."

Jim slid the headset to his shoulders.

_Shit. Did all that really happen?_

"Jim, you've got a visitor downstairs. Wants to come up. You want me to take care of this?"

Shellshocked from the course of the evening, Jim was only capable of a single nod.

oooo

Will held the call from his _News Night_ desk even though the broadcast had been transferred to the more detached Terry Smith on _Capitol Reports_. During those minutes, Will tried to coax responses from a fading interviewee. At a half past the hour, when the line had been unresponsive for a while, Will finally sat up and looked straight at the camera. It was his acknowledgement to Control that the call and the show were both finally over.

The bright rectangular panels of LED set lights were still on but the studio floor staff had withdrawn, uncomfortable at witnessing the latter half of tonight's show. And no one wanted to be there when Will had to end the call.

Will pulled out the IFB earpiece and sat there, slowly decompressing.

Gradually, he became aware of a figure standing in the shadows just beyond the bright circle of light.

Mercifully, someone in Control picked this moment to kill the set lights. As his eyes adjusted to the ambient light, he saw MacKenzie move closer, toward his desk.

She canted her head and smiled sadly.

He allowed one side of his mouth to twist in some ironic grimace. "It wasn't like this ten years ago—that morning, everything happened so fast—and all we could do was just post mortem amidst the noise and fear and bullshit. But this—" Pause. "I wanted to make a difference this time."

"You did. You treated him as a person and not as a casualty. It was the _human_ thing to do, Will."

"I wasn't prepped for the existential." Another long pause. "I wish—I wish I hadn't lied to him. Promised him that they were on the way and would get there in time. Not very heroic on my part. Not good for ratings, either." He smiled weakly. "I guess you know. Charlie made them yank me."

"Charlie made the right call. You know he did."

Will wet his lips and nodded.

"Billy, you gave that poor soul human compassion until the end. You made him _heard_. You saved him from anonymity in a moment where he was asking himself big questions. What's meaningful doesn't always come underscored and with capital letters. Sometimes it's just—listening."

"Or being here." He focused on her again and said, wonderingly, "You came. You knew I needed you and you came."

She remembered the packed bag sitting near her apartment door. Running again was a bad choice, even if this would not have been the scenario she would have picked for reconciliation. He needed her. He sustained her.

"I thought that we might need each other tonight. And—"

"And?"

"From now on."


End file.
